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I think a little of both myself. For example I enjoy taking control of the land units during a campaign. But would like to see the air and navy controlled by the AI. The ability to pick and choose what you wish the AI to control would be nice. But when playing as Germany you almost have to have the AI manage your war with USSR, just do to the sheer numbers.

I also don't like it when the AI moves troops back from the front line to reorg leaving a gaping hole there at the front. So often you see a hard fought battle for a province and both sides retreating after the battle... instead of digging in and reorganizing there.

I think a little of both myself. For example I enjoy taking control of the land units during a campaign. But would like to see the air and navy controlled by the AI. The ability to pick and choose what you wish the AI to control would be nice. But when playing as Germany you almost have to have the AI manage your war with USSR, just do to the sheer numbers.

I also don't like it when the AI moves troops back from the front line to reorg leaving a gaping hole there at the front. So often you see a hard fought battle for a province and both sides retreating after the battle... instead of digging in and reorganizing there.

You can do this already...just don't attach the Army Group to the Theatre HQ. Automate the Theatre and the attached air groups will support your ground forces while the navy does its thing. It is best not to allow the AI to reorganize. To "stop" the AI from doing massive SR & wide movements across your fronts, create multiple smaller Theatres and "herd" your forces using objectives and Theatre definitions.

I do agree, though, it would be nice to have a real feature allowing simultaneous manual/ai control on Theatres.

You can't use most of the ministers because they have stupid build priorities. You're limiting choices even more with that suggestion.

Unless you also have political ramifications for choosing or ousting certain ministers. For example, if you oust so-and-so from his minister position, then you trigger some sort of penalty with political parties or increased dissent. The way ministers are assigned in HoI3 is very simplistic. I don't know how complicated one would want to make it, but a simple simulation of internal politics might be interesting. The point of all this is to shift the global optimum for each nation toward something more historical, forcing the player and AI to account for concerns other than just military.

The political system could get an overhaul in general. It appears unfinished in HOI3 and the domestic front is rather non-existent. The coup mechanics from FTM is a good start, but there is much more to politics than coups...

My problems are not with a lack of features to play with. HOI 3 already has way too much chrome. My problem is the AI.

I'd like the AI to be able to recognize good and bad places for defensive lines.
I'd like the Ai to recognize when it cannot hold, and to fall back along the whole line. Instead of holding the front while a hole gets punched through.
I'd like the AI to be able to coordinate attacks in more than one place along a front
I'd like the AI to feint, to pretend to attack one place, but then smash through in another
I'd like the Ai to learn to cycle healthy units into a battle, and pull exhausted units out

Specifically, I want the fighting battles part of this wargame to become as fun as the creating an army part.

I don't agree with the OP. If HoI3 was just about combat, it would be quite boring compared to now - the fact that it has all aspects of running a country make it infinitely more fun and open the door to countless possibilities and further ways to customise how you are going to play your game. Delegating things to AI is also ridiculous - I can understand why the feature is there - for new players, but I would never delegate anything to the AI as it just sucks the fun out of the game for me.

So no, I do not want to lose one ounce of complexity. But that's not to say I want to increase it significantly either. If anything, some things can be slightly expanded upon and polished. For me, most of HoI4 should be about much smarter AI which can do a lot more (and better) things in many different situations.

Originally Posted by Wminus

EDIT: I think many people here are confused, thinking more complexity => more strategy. That's wrong. It goes like this: more complexity, with an AI able to handle it => more strategy.

If the AI handles it, then there's nothing strategic about it.

Originally Posted by Wminus

Would you like more provinces, more specialized units, more technologies, more policies, more control over the economy etc. etc. etc. ?Or would you like to keep things simple and clean, and more AI-friendly? Or combination of the two paths?

I do not want anything simplified - to do so would be a betrayal of the game.

Originally Posted by Wminus

Ie, should HoI4 become more, or less, micromanagement intensive?

Sameish.

Originally Posted by Wminus

My opinion: This is a wargame, so I'd say keep the focus on combat and simplify/abstract everything else. This way we don't have to deal with half the techs/brigades/policies being utterly useless, or dwell too much time on really annoying and time consuming "max-min" type of work.

I could not disagree more. Land combat is always the same - what is different is how you research and build your military.

Originally Posted by Wminus

1) Balance every unit type to be useful and worth building in not-too-specific circumstances - regardless of their historic usefulness.

So what you are saying is - make every unit the same? No I do not agree with this. The more specialisation and differentiation the better. If there's one thing I hate about modern games, it's that they give you the illusion of choice when in fact all options are too similar to matter.

Originally Posted by Wminus

2) Avoid getting making players choose between building one or the other unit. For example right now you either build TACs or CASs, light cruisers or destroyers, heavy cruisers or battleships etc. Why not make it useful to build all of them at once?

Because that's stupid and ahistorical. It takes away from the power to play different games differently and choose to take a different approach in matters.

Originally Posted by Wminus

3) Streamline as much as possible. Why are there a dozen different air & naval missions? Most are completely useless, while others are do the same thing. Logistical bombing is a prime example of being redundant - IRL strategic bombing and interdiction represented what logistical bombing does in HoI3, yet we have all 3 air missions for no good reason. Missions like naval sorties are prime examples of being useless, and they would be even if they worked properly.

What is the problem with having more options? I just don't understand this argument. In what way does it make the game more difficult? Is it too much to learn a few missions?

Originally Posted by Wminus

4) Make organizing armies less of a micromanagement hell. Oh, and I never understood why you made the Italian and Soviet armies so historically "organized" in the scenarios.. Jeez no need to spend hours doing things historically, and making sure the player will also spend hours redoing everything so things will become manageable.

This I can agree with. I think it can be very easily solved with, if you could reoganise all existing brigades based on templates. That would literally save hours of real-time tediousness.

Originally Posted by Wminus

To sum up, imo, PI should just massively improve, and simplify, HoI3 (especially the AI) and call it HoI4.

I don't agree with simplify, but I do agree with improving the AI and giving us more power in regards to reorganising armies. But apart from that, much of your post seems to want a casualisation of the game, which again is terrible for strategy & micromanagement die-hards like me.

More. And more realism.

What do I want in HoI IV?

1. A bigger map with… yes… even more provinces.

2. Carrier aircraft represented properly. There were three basic types of aircraft used bombers, torpedo bombers & CAP (interceptor) aircraft. NOT just one type of Catch All Garbage. Each had its role to play and you’d need to get the balance right.

3. Custom design of ships. The idea mentioned earlier, like in Space Empires (IV is a brilliant game) where you have “slots” to fill in various sized basic hulls.
Get rid of battle cruiser techc’s being researched separately. The whole shipping research should be streamlined. The idea of different engines in BC, BB or CV is flawed with no basis in real life. Many CVs were actually BC converted during (& sometimes after) construction anyway, capital ships (CVs, BB & BC) all have very similar engines. Even cruisers & destroyers use the same boilers & reduction gear steam turbines. Yes, there were a few notable exceptions like the diesel engines in the Deutschland class & some USN vessels (Colorado class) with turbo electric drives and separate rules/factors (fuel consumption?) may be applied for these technologies. The same goes for guns. And let’s have a distinction between main armament & secondary (anti-destroyer) armament. And if you want to combine your AD with AA, then there’s a cost. Quick training/firing (short) guns that are good against aircraft aren’t much use against fast destroyers. This was never shown as far as I know as I’ve never heard of a destroyer attack against any of the big USN battlewagons. In a similar vein, the Atlanta class cruisers were very good against aircraft but never had to prove themselves in a surface fire fight. There was even a destroyer class (Allen M. Sumner) fitted with the same battleship AA turret! There should be some kind of Henry Ford bonus for this.
The whole idea of battle cruisers is also flawed. What are they? The design premise is, fast enough to run down commerce raiders (ie CL/CA) and with the firepower to defeat them. Few good examples exist. Scharnhorst, Alaska & Dunkerque seem to be the best examples. Hood should not be considered this type of cruiser due to her slow speed during WWII even though she carried torpedoes! She was, simply a poorly balanced battleship displacing 50% more than the others three listed.

4. Different sizes of aircraft carriers. As has been posted earlier, the CVE is, typically, a converted freighter. The so-called Jeep Carrier carried 20-25 (ish) aircraft. Is this half a CAG wing or a full one? There are many “proper” carriers of differing sizes & complements from Ark Royal (50-60) up to Lexington (100-110). Those who wish to design their own ships could have a hull size (limited by a research level) into which they can fit so much engine power, hangar space, guns, fuel, ARMOUR, etc. in exactly the same way as some of us would like all ships to be user defined. I mean, just where does the late Ise fit in the grand scheme of things? Four double 14” guns, battleship armour & 22 aircraft!

5. Carriers CAN NOT recover aircraft while in port. This is an exploit to avoid surface engagement. They have to be steaming (the faster the better) in to the wind. I’ll draw the line at launching aircraft, but only under duress.

6. CAGs should recover organisation whilst on board their carrier. CVs have workshops to conduct all manner of repairs and even spare aircraft to replace some losses. All flight operations are planned on board. Carrier pilots did NOT fly to an island airbase to have a few good nights’ sleep! Carriers would receive replacements for losses but they would not swap out their entire complement for another set of wings that have been “re-charging” on land. I’m sorry, but this is bollocks.

7. Aircraft do not have infinite range when re-basing. Another exploit that needs to be fixed.

8. Placed factories. Your tanks, planes & ships should start off at places of major IC. This is particularly true of shipping. Large ships can ONLY be built in a few large shipyards. Very large ships may require specific upgrade to a province to allow this. Although the Kure shipyard was capable of building Yamato, the Mitsubishi docks at Nagasaki underwent significant re-work in order to build Musashi. So Japan could only build TWO SHBs at once. This seems to require shipping IC to be separated from all other IC. There are other instances of hull being broken-up to make room for more urgent projects so good shipyards ARE limited.

9. Perhaps we could have four types of IC. Shipping, Automotive, Aviation and everything else.
The “everything else” can be used to manufacture supplies and augment the other three. Gun factories make machine guns for infantry, tanks, planes & ships so it abstracts quite well. Artillery factories make the same kinds of guns used in AFVs & small ships.

10. Ships require officers. This is the best suggestion I’ve seen for limiting ridiculous fleet sizes. Make officers easier to obtain to retain balance, but ships need them just as they need manpower.

11. The idea of ships requiring steel (metal) in addition to IC is also sound. Building aircraft is labour intensive. It requires a lot of work per ton, AFVs, likewise but not so much. Large warships do not require the same amount of “work” per ton so… they should require significant IC and steel. I appreciate that manufacture has to be abstracted or aircraft would be almost entirely “rares” and tanks mostly “metal” but shipping is much more obvious. A 3000 men division with 10000 tons of vehicles & equipment or 3000 men crewing two battleships totalling 60,000 tons or more. Ships ARE steel intensive.

12. Speaking of building things. Over a YEAR to build a CAG? It took two weeks to build a Spitfire. TWO WEEKS!!! Yes, it takes ages to properly train the pilots. Maybe a couple of months, but not fourteen. Let’s see a real difference between green pilots & veteran pilots. The IJN should cream the USN after all the experience they have bombing the crap out of China.

13. As Japan, I want to be able to sell rares to Germany using their submarine (R-class) freighters. This was a rubber, zinc & tungsten lifeline to Germany which is not (as far as I know) modelled and should be relatively sink proof compared to standard merchants.

14. Paratroopers should take a casualty hit on every drop depending upon terrain. You do NOT parachute on to a nation’s capital & expect to survive. Another VP exploit. Woods are bad enough, hills? OK not much worse than open plains, mountains OMG! Buildings? Forget it! These casualties are dead but would be mitigated by First Aid & Tricleback. Gliders are worse still. They are virtually one-shot items as most were destroyed, many with the loss of cargo/equipment & personnel even when landing in open fields.

This is a start. It all adds up to more complexity (more realism?) and, IMHO, the more realistic the game engine & representations, the better the game will be.

If HoI3 was just about combat, it would be quite boring compared to now - the fact that it has all aspects of running a country make it infinitely more fun and open the door to countless possibilities and further ways to customise how you are going to play your game.

HOI3 is primarily a wargame. Politics does not matter much, diplomacy is centred around factions, switching sides never happen unless you conquer X etc.

If the AI handles it, then there's nothing strategic about it.

GalCiv2 is a strategy game and the AI handles the game's features well.

So what you are saying is - make every unit the same?

The point is to make every unit useful in some way and prevent uber-specialisation from being the best way of achieving victory, because it was not how things were done IRL.

Because that's stupid and ahistorical.

Oh yeah? Show me a major navy which didn't have destroyers, cruisers or battleships.

want a casualisation of the game, which again is terrible for strategy & micromanagement die-hards like me.

Intensive micromanagement suxx for most players. In fact, it's usually the result of bad game/interface design and not because of lack of depth or strategic options.

TBH micromanaging every division on the Eastern Front isn't very fun for me, as I spend far, far too much time just ordering units to go to the next province, reordering them to do the same thing because they forgot their orders when they got OOS status or moving HQs around. I also have to pause the game every few seconds in order to manage all these things. There is not much strategy to it.

1. A bigger map with… yes… even more provinces.

WHAT?! The current map is big enough IMO. I would like the devs to focus on more realistic resource/IC/MP distribution.

10. Ships require officers. This is the best suggestion I’ve seen for limiting ridiculous fleet sizes. Make officers easier to obtain to retain balance, but ships need them just as they need manpower.

I agree, but if they use officers from the same pool as land units, then disbanding the whole navy when playing the Soviet Union or various minor nations will be the first thing many players will do.